By GREG ANSLEY
CANBERRA - A Labor avalanche in Saturday's Queensland state elections has whipped further props from beneath Prime Minister John Howard's campaign to retain power in the federal poll later this year.
Coalition alarm deepened after Premier Peter Beattie, leading a minority Labor Government into an election forced on it by scandal, demolished the National and Liberal parties with little help from Pauline Hanson's promised vengeance on conservative candidates.
Labor swept deep into the state's traditionally redneck rural electorates in its biggest landslide in 50 years, storming for the first time into blue-ribbon seats in the Gold and Sunshine Coasts and even threatening to topple Opposition Leader and former Premier Rob Borbidge.
If the scale of the swing to Labor - which will hold at least 62 of the state parliament's 89 seats - were repeated in the federal election, it would leave the Coalition with fewer than 10 seats in Queensland and push Howard from office.
Beattie's victory, and last weekend's Labor triumph in Western Australia, showed that Howard has more to fear than just Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party and the fragmentation of the conservative vote.
The Green vote in Queensland almost doubled on Saturday, with its preferences a key in the pounding Borbidge took on the Gold Coast, while in Western Australia the Greens will hold more seats in the Upper House than One Nation.
The blend of resurgent One Nation and Green votes will be felt most keenly in marginal rural and regional seats, particularly those on city outskirts where urban and rural interests overlap and where their preferences will be vital.
A federal litmus test is already being prepared for Howard in Queensland with the by-election next month for retiring former Defence Minister John Moore's seat of Ryan, on the southwestern fringe of Brisbane.
The Liberals' hold on the blue-ribbon seat weakened with the emergence of One Nation in the 1998 elections, with Moore's two-party preferred vote sliding about 10 per cent.
Beattie's victory bodes ill for Howard, despite Government efforts to separate federal issues from state concerns and a strategy of attacking Hanson with the slogan that a vote for One Nation is a vote for Labor.
Hammered by a mass rebellion of MPs who defied Borbidge to deal with Hanson, the National Party lost more than half its seats, and its Coalition Liberal partner was stripped of seven seats and precariously clung to just two.
One Nation's support fell from 22 per cent in 1998 to about 9 per cent - which will give it up to three seats - while Greens and independents are expected to hold four or five.
An ecstatic and humbled Beattie warned Howard that the bush was burning with anger at high petrol prices and that the issue would be the Achilles heel that would bring him down.
Borbidge said the Coalition needed to address the issues that drove people to the ugly extremes of Australian politics.
Recriminations began racing within the Coalition, with state Liberal leader David Watson blaming the Nationals for the defeat, the Nationals calling for unity and maverick outback federal National MP Bob Katter demanding the head of leader John Anderson.
"If they continue with [present federal Government] policies then they'll be as popular as a brown snake in a sleeping bag," said Mr Katter.
Hanson said the Queensland landslide was a warning to Howard that he was not listening to the people.
Labor landslide batters Howard
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